Written By: Rev. Matt Franks
“Unless we are thankful, we will suffer the leprosy of ingratitude. We will be depressed and full of self-pity and jealousy.” ― from “An African Prayer Book”
I say, “our attitudes matter,” a lot and they really do. When we are not living a life full of gratitude for all that God gives us we become self-centered. Psalm 43:5 reminds us to not be self-centered and to have our hope in God who is our saving presence.
When I was walking with my mother in the final months in her life we were not centered on the Cancer that was taking over in her body or the Early Onset Alzheimer’s that she was living with. Instead every meeting with her we focused on the hope that we knew this journey for her on earth was ending and that her time in heaven was coming. That hope did give us some comfort and we were so thankful we got the three months with her.
It was my mother who taught me that my attitude matters. We can take adversity head on with Hope that God is with us and we are not alone in this time. Or we can have a pity party that no one will attend. Living a life of thanksliving is sometimes taking a bad situation and finding the light in it. It is there, we just have to wade through the muck to find it and we go through the muck with God on our side.
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